WAR GRATUITIES.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 October 1919, Page 2

WAR GRATUITIES.

OFFICIAL ORDER ISSUED, PAYMENTS TO COMMENCE. The Order-in-Council authorising the payment of the war gratuity of Is 6d per day of service abroad having been issued, payments will commence shortly. The cx-soldier or soldier entitled to the gratuity lias to make application on a form supplied by the Defence Department, and when the account has been checked the money due' to the applicant will be paid to his credit in the Post Office Savings Bank or any other bank in which he has ah open account. The applications will require to be checked by Base Records. Application forms (E.P. Pay Form 192) for gratuity will be distributed to all post offices throughout New Zealand. These forms must be completed where necessary, and forwarded to the Officer in Charge War Expenses, Wellington. In the case of deceased members, the applications should be made by their legal representatives. ■'..''.'■ When the form is received in the Pay Office it wBl be numbered and dealt with strictly in order of receipt. Owing; to the ven- large number of cases, it will be some time before they can all be investigated, so that applicants must not expect payment at once. The application will be examined by the Pay Office and the gratuity calculated. The amount due will be remitted to the Postal Department for cither: — I (a) Depositing to the ei-'iit of the applicant's present account in the Post Office Savings Bank; or (b) Depositing to the credit of a Post Office Savings Bank account which . will be specially opened if the applicant has no other bank account; or (c) Lodgment in any bank or private savings bank in New Zealand at which the applicant has a current account as shown in the application; or (d) Payment to or for the person entitled under paragraph 11 hereof. In no case will the amount be paid direct to the member by the Pay Office. Already many thousands of applications for the gratuity have been received. The total amount which will be absorbed in the payment of the gratuity is estimated at £5,552,000. The Minister of Defence has received many inquiries regarding the payment of gratuity in respect of deceased soldiers For general information, therefore, it is stated that where a soldier has died while a member of the New Zealand Forces, or after being honorably discharged from the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces, payment of the gratuity is limited u> his widow, children, father, or mother, in terms of section 7 (subsection 3) of the Expeditionary Forces Amendment Act, 1918.